The Montevideo Treaty of 1980 is open to the accession of all Latin American countries. On 26 August 1999, the first accession to the 1980 Treaty of Montevideo took place with the accession of the Republic of Cuba as a member of ALADI. On 10 May 2012, the Republic of Panama became the 13th member of ALADI. Similarly, the accession of the Republic of Nicaragua was accepted at the sixteenth session of the Council of Ministers (Resolution 75 (XVI) of 11 August 2011. At present, Nicaragua is moving towards compliance with the conditions for alADI membership. ALADI opens its scope for the rest of Latin America through multilateral links or partial agreements with other countries and territories of integration of the continent (Article 25). The Latin American Integration Association also envisages horizontal cooperation with other integration movements around the world and partial actions with third countries or their respective integration territories (Article 27). In June 1980, representatives met in Acapulco and Montevideo and voted in favour of the dissolution of LAFTA and the replacement by the Latin American Integration Association. It was decided that the new federation would have less well-defined objectives, no concrete timetable for the implementation of the objectives and, on the whole, less rigorous. The laIA`s objective is to reduce or remove barriers to trade, while members are entitled to separate trade and customs agreements. While the laiA does not call for widespread tariff reductions, there are preferential tariffs for regional products and regional agreements on issues related to agricultural products, technology exchanges and environmental and tourism issues. LaiA also recognizes an economic hierarchy and its trade and customs agreements take into account the level of economic development of each country.

Member States are classified into three categories: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico are considered the most developed; Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela are in an intermediate development phase; Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay are the least developed members.